


If Not a Tool

by Artemis1000



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Genre: Arguing, Character Study, F/F, Missing Scene, Pining, Robot Feels, Robot/Human Relationships, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Qi'ra can't sleep and L3-37 doesn't sleep. They have a second chat in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. L3 may have to admit to herself that she likes pretty, deadly girls.





	If Not a Tool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



It’s late by the arbitrary rhythm of day and night they followed aboard the Falcon, the ship quiet while the crew slept, lights dimmed to a mellow glow intended to lull organics back to sleep.

It wouldn’t have been quite correct to say that this was L3’s favorite time of the day in the cockpit; she enjoyed co-piloting with Lando and the banter that filled their every minute together. Yet it’s certainly not her least favorite time, either, especially now that they had guests aboard which were underfoot all day long.

Nighttime was peaceful, and it’s all hers alone.

With such thoughts on her mind, L3 was all the more surprised when the door to the cockpit opened, and a quick swivel of her head dome revealed it wasn’t a sleepy Lando coming to check on her.

“Did you miss me?” she asked as she seemingly returned her attention to the controls. In truth, quite a bit of her attention remained on Qi’ra. She was, after all, one of these constantly underfoot guests.

“In a way.” Qi’ra took Lando’s chair just like she had for their other conversation, but when L3 scrutinized her closer she didn’t look quite so poised and polished anymore. There were shadows under her eyes and her hair seemed in danger of coming loose, as if she’d already taken it down for bed and only made a half-hearted effort to pin it up again.

“I will still be here in the morning,” L3 noted. “Organics are useless without sleep.”

“I know.” Qi’ra’s voice was quieter than during their other chat. Everything about her struck L3 as quieter; her voice, even her body language. She didn’t seem to be in the mood for banter tonight, which was a shame. L3 had enjoyed their banter.

And yet, L3 ventured, she might have liked her better like this than when she had been all polished, gleaming edges, and too much amusement at the notion that an organic could be attracted to L3. Maybe, she was willing to admit to herself, maybe, just maybe, it had hurt a little that Qi’ra had treated it like a joke, just like most organics would.

Maybe L3 had liked looking at these polished, gleaming edges a little bit too much, and had liked to think that Qi’ra was looking back.

Maybe. Just maybe.

Now, Qi’ra watched the streaking lights of hyperspace and L3-37 watched her.

A droid didn’t feel the passing of time as organics did and L3 suspected this should have given her greater patience. Truth was, she had never mastered patience – and there’s nothing at all left to do while the ship was on autopilot.

“I don’t trust you,” she blurted out.

Qi’ra turned her head towards her. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. L3 mostly noticed that they weren’t bright red anymore. She must have really been ready to go to sleep before something had driven her to the cockpit instead. It was, of course, only suspicion which made her want to find out what exactly had brought her here.

“I would be disappointed in your good judgment if it weren’t so,” she said.

She sounded sincere, which robbed L3 of every scathing reply she had primed in her processor. All she had left to do was to poke the nav computer with a finger, even though there was still nothing to do for her. “You’re going to be trouble, both of you.”

“And yet we have an agreement,” Qi’ra reminded her, a hint of polished steel slipping back into her voice. “Lando Calrissian has given me his word.”

“And Crimson Dawn will enforce that he keeps it, I know, I know,” L3 snapped, head turning to glare at her.

Qi’ra’s smile was glib and perfectly lacquered, even without any red lipstick. “We are all businesspeople.”

L3 turned away, quietly seething, a hint of the bitter helplessness she’d felt in the cantina welling up in her all over again.

“Don’t you hate it?” she blurted out when she couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “You’re just a pretty tool to Crimson Dawn, can’t you see that?”

“We are all only tools to the people who have a use for us,” Qi’ra responded. There had been no pause, no hesitation, it was almost as if she had expected the accusation and prepared the perfect glib answer in advance.

L3 wondered if she had been expecting to have this argument with Han. In the end, she decided, it didn’t matter. “I’m not satisfied being anyone’s tool,” she said firmly, her own reply as ready as Qi’ra’s.

“No. You fight against the inevitable.” She huddled in the pilot chair, somehow making herself seem smaller in it, yet her voice was as sharp and proud as could be. “You get nothing but one bloody nose after the other for your efforts. That’s what happens when you try to break the system instead of working within it. No one person can break it.”

“You’re not working within anything,” L3 muttered bitterly, “you’re just being played.”

She straightened, stung maybe or just tired of pretending meekness. “I don’t see you doing much to free your fellow droids, lip service aside. You’ve spent your days helping Lando Calrissian make a fortune in smuggling – and through him, you’ve worked for Crimson Dawn, too.”

L3 felt her systems overclock with outrage. “I’m helping!” she snapped. “We’re helping. Wherever and whenever we can.”

Qi’ra merely hummed in response.

“Doesn’t change the fact you’re just a tool,” she insisted.

Qi’ra remained quiet for so long that L3 didn’t expect an answer anymore when it finally came, Qi’ra quietly reminding her, “I’m a weapon. There’s a difference.”

She would have liked to say that there wasn’t, that Qi’ra was only deluding herself and buying into empty promises, but that would have been a lie. L3-37 had heard whispers of how dangerous Crimson Dawn’s top lieutenant was. Rumor had it, she had once outsmarted IG-88 and Hondo Ohnaka at the same time, no mean feat even for a conman of Lando’s skill.

She called up nav charts on the computer and then switched to the calculations for their current hyperspace route as if there was any point to triple-checking them when they were already underway.

“I bear their brand,” Qi’ra offered into the silence.

 _Like a valuable tool_ , L3 wanted to repeat, yet she canceled the command before it could reach her vocoder.

“Droids are branded, too,” she offered instead.

“But not you.”

“I’m free,” L3 said, and neither did she add _for all that it’s worth_ , which oftentimes wasn’t all that much in a galaxy which didn’t think of droids as beings which could own themselves. Of course, it had never made her wish to polish herself to a high shine and bow to those who held her chains, she thought bitterly as she covertly watched Qi’ra again.

“As you remind all of us constantly.” There was the benevolent amusement again, the one which had secretly stung during their previous conversation.

“You’re not any freer than I am,” L3 shot back, straightening.

“No, I’m not.” Qi’ra leaned back in the pilot’s chair, eyes going unfocused on the streaking starlight as if her thoughts were taking her far away.

Maybe her thoughts were back on her home planet, or with a family she had left behind, or the life she could have had instead. Irrationally, L3 found herself wondering what it would feel like if her thoughts would be with her instead.

L3-37 had never been very good at choosing the course of action that would spare her trouble, you only had to ask Lando to have it confirmed.

“Well. You don’t have to act like you _like_ it!”

There it was, Qi’ra’s attention all on her again. More on her than it had been at any point during either of their conversations and L3 felt a prickle in her circuits under her intense scrutiny. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing to catch the attention of a woman like Qi’ra, and yet her circuits still felt electrified with it.

Qi’ra pursed her lips. “Do you really have to rage against it quite so loudly?” Her voice sounded perfectly pleasant, soft even, perfectly at odds with the sharpness of her gaze that still studied L3 for the slightest twitch that would betray her. She wanted to squirm under her gaze. “Do you really have to remind everyone constantly that you can’t be made to obey?” Qi’ra let a moment of tense silence settle between them. “Or are you afraid they will forget if you don’t?”

And all of a sudden, it was L3’s turn to sit up straight and silent, stung by harsh judgment.

Qi’ra ran her fingers over the Millennium Falcon’s console, her sleeve falling just so to reveal the red brand on her wrist. L3-37 knew better than to assume it was a coincidence.

Her touch was gentle as she brushed over the array of buttons and lights and screens, so painstakingly careful to touch but not trigger anything.

If she were organic, she would have gulped. “I don’t like it.”

Silence, again.

“If I were a war droid, I could do more.”

Qi’ra quirked a brow. “You could rebuild yourself one.”

L3 looked away first and picked at a cable sticking out of her knee joint. “I could. But then I wouldn’t be myself anymore.”

Qi’ra had no response to that, she just went back to her pretense of studying the stars, her face very tight and carefully expressionless when L3 covertly studied her.

The Millennium Falcon raced on and L3-37 wondered to herself what it would cost her to make Qi’ra look at her instead of the stars.

“Why are you here?” she asked finally.

She kept looking at the stars but there was a hint of a smile on Qi’ra’s lips; it looked playful to L3. “Because this is where I wanted to be.” She let the hum of the Falcon’s machines fill the silence between them. “Is that reason enough for you, Elthree?”

L3 tilted her head home towards Qi’ra, and she, in turn, peered at her. There was no doubt now about the playfulness of her smile. L3’s circuits prickled again. “It’s the only reason you need.”

Qi’ra, L3 decided, gleamed brightly when she smiled – like a weapon, not like a tool.


End file.
